Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy

The main difference between Associate Fellowship and Fellowship is the need to engage with all five areas of activities, as well as all six areas of core knowledge and all four professional values.

​In the spirit of disclosure I'll tell you that not long after the deadline for applications had passed my application was sent back so I could revise some parts of it - I had not adequately addressed K6: "The implications of quality assurance and quality enhancement foracademic and professional practice with a particular focus on teaching." I was given the opportunity to include sections explicitly addressing this, and that's why some of my sections are over the 600 word maximum length.

​The feedback I received from the panel made it clear I should have mapped the K (core knowledge) and V (professional values) into my answers, which I did not. Perhaps if I had, I would have realised I had not adequately addressed K6 before submission.

Evidencing Area of Activity 1: Design and plan learning activities and/or programmes of studyI primarily design active learning activities, and this approach has been shown to improve student engagement and outcomes (Felder and Brent 2009, Prince 2004). The aim is to engage all students, so many activities are designed to involve an element of individual or small-group work (cf. Felder and Brent 2009). Active learning enables students to apply prior knowledge, utilise historical data (enabling engagement with lectures and readings), strengthen analytic skills, gain academic confidence, and facilitates the development of transferable skills.

An effective problem-based activity that I have successfully used with several first-year Introduction to Ancient History classes (at King’s College London) is the ‘Trial of Alexander the Great’ – putting Alexander on trial for the death of his officer Cleitus. This involves the class being divided into two groups and, using set historical texts, constructing cases arguing for Alexander’s complicity or non-complicity in the death. Students explore the problem by looking at the texts regarding both the incident and about Alexander’s character. Using prior knowledge (from lectures and readings), students theorise, discuss, and agree on the solution before articulating it using ancient evidence.

It would be interesting to develop this into an activity that spans a longer time-period. This might be done by assigning groups and specific readings in the week before the ‘trial’. While informal and formal feedback on the activity was neutral, I observed that students were keen to participate in groups, and overall even more reserved students were actively engaging with their groups. Developing this activity to suit the context of Introduction to Greek History at Leicester might involve assigning different seminar groups to argue different sides of the case, and all coming together for a larger, class-wide mock trial. As the seminar groups at Leicester are significantly smaller than those at KCL. Further, an adapted version of such an activity might benefit students early in the term to introducing seminar classes as collaborative, student-led spaces. The way this class activity changed over several different iterations was the result both of student feedback, but also of observation of the class by my former Head of Department (at KCL). In discussing the class with him in terms of both student understanding of the material and my own approach to the structure of the class, within the framework of module requirements at KCL, I was able to adapt the activity to ensure the ‘lessons’ would enable the students also to approach other class material, in later weeks, in a similarly interrogative way.

This year I took a session for a third-year class, Archaeology/Ancient History in Education. I wanted to enable the small group to interrogate their own reading and citation practices to give them some tools to make their own classrooms more equitable and reflective of their student bodies. I asked the students to prepare several things, including an audit of the gender balance of readings in a randomly chosen class (from any of the classes they had taken during their degree programme), and to read the introductions of two recently-published edited collections on ‘Women in the Ancient World’ and think about the similarities and differences of the editors’ approaches. Following a short introduction, we spent most of the class writing a draft ‘Code of Best Practice’ for ensuring diversity of voices in the ancient history or archaeology classroom. The students focused on three main areas of diversity: creating a diverse range of voices from the ancient world, by looking at ‘ordinary people’, women, slaves, children, and other marginalized groups rather than a focus on the elite men who produce the majority of written evidence; creating a diverse range of voices from scholarship assigned and discussed in class; and ensuring that the diversity of the class is well represented in discussion time (that is, giving underrepresented students as much opportunity to actively participate in class activities).

The class ran smoothly and the students were pleased with the opportunity to actively create a working document that they could take into their future professional lives. It gave me an opportunity to be reflective regarding the diversity of my own classes, and I found great personal benefit in the session for my own teaching practice.

My main experience in developing or revising new course content has been in circumstances where I have inherited courses – primarily these have been several modules at KCL and a module I am in the process of preparing to teach next semester. Initially when taking on a new module I review the previous year’s syllabus and student feedback, along with the general requirements for module development. My aim is always to ensure that previous feedback is incorporated into my redesign of module material. Further to this, I like to solicit unofficial student feedback at the midway point of term, in order to ensure that I am presenting material in a format that students respond well to. Furthermore, I am involved in the ongoing audit on distance learning materials to ensure that the meet changing student needs, while still maintaining the highest quality for delivery.

As part of this auditing, I have consulted marking moderation and external examination reports from previous semesters. Reflecting on these reports helped me to understand parts of the course that were, in general, less effective in student engagement and understanding. Though the moderation and external quality assurance process, I have been able to enhance the student experience for some of our most marginal students – those undertaking distance courses. This, in turn, feeds into my campus-based teaching practice and I remember and apply the lessons learned from those quality assurance processes.​

Evidencing Area of Activity 2: Teach and/or support learningMy primary aim as an educator is for students can grow into critical, creative, and active thinkers. This means encouraging and supporting students to ‘do’ Ancient History from the beginning of their degree, rather than spending time passively listening and reading. I do this by engaging students with the ancient material, and supporting scholarship, and giving them space to begin formulating and sharpening their own ideas and opinions about the ancient world. This is the foundation of ancient history as a discipline and teaches students a range of ‘transferable skills’, including critical reading and analysis. While I teach my students how to read Thucydides (for instance), they are also learning how to critically engage with, say, The Daily Mail or the New York Times. This this end, I actively bring my own research methods into the classroom in level-appropriate ways. I have, for example, had students write short newspaper-style articles, write broad summaries of texts and concepts, condense a text into a series of 140 character ‘tweets’, and held a judicial trial. By allowing students to process evidence in different ways and to write for different purposes they feel more prepared for formal assessment and more confident in engaging with new material, and this has been reflected in my student feedback.

I am committed to research-oriented and research-based teaching, as distinguished by Griffiths (2004) and Healey (2005), and described by Clarke (1997). Students then learn both how to research, write, and engage with the material, and learn through active research activities. This approach works particularly well in Ancient History because research is largely focused on text and object analysis, through a variety of methodological frames. By introducing these frames in a level-appropriate way, students can begin actively ‘doing’ ancient historical research from the beginning. This can be written into courses in a variety of ways, both traditional (e.g. essay) and non-traditional (e.g. public engagement activities), and through in-class activities. I expect my students to be active learners, and this is the basis of my identity as an educator: I am a ‘moderator’ rather than a ‘teacher’. I often joke with my classes that my job is to do as little as possible during our time together, but there is some truth in this. I am serious about my role as an educator, and I plan classes that are thought provoking, incorporate the historical background, and allow space for students to think critically and creatively. This means that the ‘hard work’ is done by the students while in class. The success of my approach is demonstrated in the student feedback I have received, including comments such as ‘The things that Ellie says about how to be a good historian and how to analyse text properly, they really help me as I haven’t done anything like this before’, ‘I like that we engage quite practically with the texts we are reading’, and ‘The breakdown of different historical texts, in uncommon methods, the discussion that has an agenda such as how to approach those texts’ (prompt was ‘what do you find most helpful…’).

I try to enable my students to become ‘fledgling ancient historians’, and I believe this can be easily achieved by empowering students with the confidence to oversee their own learning, and this is tied to my ideas about research-based, student-focused teaching. Then, rather than a student-teacher dichotomy, students feel that we are accomplices in their learning.

Alongside my own practice, I have also been involved in assisting junior colleagues to refine and reflect on their own teaching practice, predominantly by undertaking peer-observation of classes, and providing feedback based on the specific aims and requirements of modules in the department. This also led me to undertake independent research on the module validation process at the University of Leicester. This, I believe, has had the secondary benefit of providing me with a framework within which to build my own teaching practice. It has also enabled me to understand and better reflect on observation of my own practice (both in class teaching and assessment and feedback). I have always approached observation of my own teaching as an opportunity for me to interrogate my practice – both my approach to the class material and to the student learning experience. Undergoing such peer-observation as a quality assurance of my practice can, and does, enable me to approach my students with the best, and most appropriate, classroom methods.

​Evidencing Area of Activity 3: Assess and give feedback to learnersI have primarily been involved in the setting and marking of ‘traditional’ assessment types, including essays, exams, and oral presentations. While the majority of these have been formally marked by me, I have also tried to incorporate self-assessment and peer-assessment activities alongside this. These methods of alternative assessment can be very useful, and understanding the mechanics of marking also enables students to improve their marks on subsequent assignments (Dochy, Segers, and Sluijsmans 1999). Essays are useful in history subjects, and can be effective in research-oriented curricula, but there are drawbacks, including students’ preconception of essay writing (predominantly from empirical evidence, but discussed in studies on assessment preference and performance e.g. McCune 2004).

Often students do not understand what is involved in a research-based essay. This can easily be circumvented by dedicating time in class both to a discussion, with examples, of good essay writing practice and detailed discussion of the marking rubric required. The most beneficial activity, in terms of student confidence, is the discussion of the criteria. One way of achieving this is to incorporate ‘unofficial’ assessment and feedback into normal class activities, and this is where self- and peer-assessment can be valuable. In one case involving oral presentations at Monash University, students were required to submit an assessment form following their own presentation. This was the same form as I used to mark their presentation and included sections of depth of content, use of ancient sources, and overall presentation. In one year, this form was given to students at the beginning of the class in which students presented (although criteria were available beforehand), and the next year the forms were given to students at the time their topics were assigned. While self-assessments in both years were generally close to the assigned mark, those students who had been given the form earlier gained higher marks overall and reported feeling more confident in their presentations. Moving forward, I would like to utilise different types of formal assessment, including writing portfolios, individual and group blogging, Wikipedia editing, and public engagement projects. Students do report feeling more comfortable with ‘traditional’ essay and exam based assessment, so these different assessment types might be more beneficial to students when combined with traditional assessment. For example, a student could select an essay topic at the beginning of term and use a weekly blog to explore different aspects of that topic, before writing the final essay at the end of term. Another example might involve a student writing a piece of historical fiction with a ‘commentary’ alongside it describing the source material they have used, how and where it deviates from sources and why that deviation might be historically plausible.

Student feedback can also be enhanced by using a self-assessment model. Following feedback, I like to meet with students to discuss their work, and often ask students to summarise the feedback they have received before these meetings, so I can understand how they have interpreted it. From this point, it is easy to discuss how the feedback can be implemented to improve future work. This is facilitated by providing clear feedback featuring concrete examples for improvement. While marking for a third-year course ‘Greek Religion’ at King’s College London – the first module I had coordinated and run myself – I had some trouble writing effective feedback and sought assistance for a colleague to develop an effective feedback practice. Following this, I now base my feedback on Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick’s principles of good feedback practice (2006).

Within the quality assurance framework in SAAH, I undertake assessment moderation of my colleagues marking (and, similarly, my own marking is moderated). I consider this to be an important step in the assessment process, which provides an opportunity to reflect on my marking practices both from seeing my colleague’s practice and from having comments provided on my own. This process has enabled me to refine my feedback-giving process, and ensures that students are always being marked along the same criteria, and with the same level of constructive commentary. I include reflections on the internal and external assessment moderation process in my teaching journal for each subject – this ensures that when giving feedback in future (both iterations of the same module, and taking those lessons more widely), I have a stronger base on which to draw, and have a better understanding of delivering effective feedback to students.

Evidencing Area of Activity 4: Develop effective learning environments and approaches to student support and guidanceThe physical environments most often used in the study of ancient history are the lecture hall and the seminar room – there is very little that can realistically be done to manipulate the physical environment within rooms like this. I find students quickly get used to my insistence on moving chairs and tables to create spaces more conducive to open discussion. Small changes, such as moving rows of chairs and sitting in a wider circle, can enable more organic and inclusive conversation as participants can see one another easily. This easy manipulation of the physical environment also serves to de-hierarchise the classroom, as I move down to sit on the same level as students. This is something that obviously cannot happen in the distance learning environment, but small adjustments, particularly in communication, can serve to redress perceived imbalances between the student and myself. All this serves to contribute to the feeling that students and teachers are partners in learning, creating students who are more engaged and, therefore, in a position for effective and active learning (Healey, Flint, and Harrington 2014: 13).

This approach directly feeds into the type of teaching and learning environment I like to create more generally – opening the physical environment leads directly to an opening up of the learning environment. The creation of an open learning environment not only means that students are comfortable discussing their ideas and issues in class, but that they are also more confident in their group discussions outside class. Giving students the tools to determine their own learning needs and goals, in addition to the teaching and learning goals that I set for the class, means that student who excel do not get bored by the class material, but that student who struggle do not feel as though they are being left behind (much of my approach is based on Hannafin, Land and Oliver (1983), but with alterations to allow for more recent pedagogic and technological developments). Activities designed to assist in the creation of an open learning environment include reflexive workbooks, where students are encouraged to write of one or more weekly prompts (provided by me at the end of each week) focusing not on what they have learned, but the ways in which the material covered has made them think, or draw connections to other parts of the syllabus. These workbooks do not make up part of marked assessment, but they are a place for me to identify where students are struggling, or where they might be developing particular interests that I can help nurture. There have been cases where students have developed their own essay topics out of their reflection. Students comment that making the time and space to reflect on the class material directly impact the learning environment in class, as they are more confident and willing to share and explore topics with their classmates. I am confident that this is an excellent tool for the creation of an open and active learning environment because several students have told me they developed their own reflexive workbooks for other classes as well.

A further advantage is their willingness to come to me to seek extra help when they feel as though they are struggling, and this is something that has repeatedly been raised in student feedback I have received. I try to continue the open learning environment of my classrooms into my office hours as well.

Evidencing Area of Activity 5: Engage in continuing professional development in subjects/disciplines and their pedagogy, incorporating research, scholarship and the evaluation of professional practicesMy main strategy for updating and developing my capability as a teacher is by keeping a reflexive journal, in which I write a few sentences at the end of each class I teach or observe, linking the activities and discussion back to my main pedagogical aims – which I have discussed throughout this application and include creating an open learning environment and engaging in research-based and research-oriented teaching practices. Not only does this journal help me to identify places where my practice could improve, but helps me to develop more effective activities and tasks for future classes. In my evidence for Area 1 (above) I discussed a classroom activity in which students put Alexander the Great on trial for the death of Cleitus, and mentioned that the activity had been refined over the course of several years. This is an excellent example of where my ongoing reflexive practice has helped to sharpen a classroom activity, making it more effective and ensuring that students get the most out of their time in class.

Last year I co-organised a pedagogy conference as part of my ongoing involvement with the Women’s Classical Committee (WCC), titled ‘Classics and Feminist Pedagogy: Practical Tips for Teaching’ (see Mackin et. al. 2017a, 2017b). This included presentations on teaching difficult topics, which is particularly relevant to studies of the ancient world; where we must effectively teach topics that can be uncomfortable including slavery and sexual assault. Following on from the conference, I began to interrogate my own teaching practice and how I put together my classes. This led to a paper I was invited to give at the WCC’s annual meeting this year, titled ‘Making Classes Match Classrooms: Finding Diverse Voices in the Ancient World and Scholarship'. In this paper, I discussed the method I had developed for auditing my reading lists (by scholar gender, institution, career stage and precarity, and ethnicity), not to try and artificially change the make up of those lists but to become aware of any imbalances present within them. At the same time, I tried to ensure that there was also a balance of ancient voices in my classes, that students were given the opportunity to think critically about the places of women, children, slaves, poorer citizens, and foreigners (for example), rather than just the elite citizen men who created much of evidence we have extant. This then directly fed into a class I gave in a third-year subject called ‘Archaeology and Ancient History in Education’, in which I pitched some ideas related to finding diversity in both ancient and scholarly voices and the small group of students then developed a ‘code of best practice’ that they could, in turn, take into their own teaching practice.

I am an avid reader of pedagogic articles, and particularly where those are related to my own field of classics and ancient history. It is important to me, as an educator, to be up to date with new developments in pedagogic practice, even when I do not wish to transfer those developments into my own classroom. I also encourage students, particularly in the later years of their degrees, to think about the teaching styles that they respond to the best, and how they might develop those in class practices into effective at-home study methods for themselves. Along with reading I also engage in discussions about pedagogy with colleagues in person, and though social media (including Twitter). This ongoing dialogue helps me reflect on my own teaching practice and ways I could improve, feeding back into my reflexive journal.

Reference ListClarke, B.R. (1997) ‘The Modern Integration of Research Activities with Teaching and Learning’, The Journal of Higher Education, 68 (3): 241-255.

Healey, M. (2005) ‘Linking Research and Teaching: Exploring Disciplinary Spaces and the Role of Inquiry-Based Learning’, in Barnett. R (ed.), Reshaping the University: New Relationships Between Research, Scholarship, and Teaching (McGraw-Hill): 67-78.